


profound precarious property

by escherzo



Series: T4TMA 2021 [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (at the end) - Freeform, Exploration, It/Its Pronouns for Helen | The Distortion, It/Its Pronouns for Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Other, Tags Are Hard, being unmade, it pronouns in a positive context, sexual content but in a very abstract way, the distortion as a gender concept, the hallways, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:21:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28653414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo
Summary: “You wanted to be here,” it laughs, and then he is pressed to the floor, or has he always been on the floor? His own form blurs and twists, is made and unmade, and all at once as he wraps his legs around hips that are not, he remembers. Understands.If I am an ‘it’, Archivist, what does that make you?(T4TMA Day 6: Euphoria/Exploration)
Relationships: Helen | The Distortion/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: T4TMA 2021 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090997
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43
Collections: t4tma week 2021





	profound precarious property

**Author's Note:**

> this one is more for me than the others are, if that makes sense? idk. I don't know that I expect other people to Get It in the same way (I hope maybe someone will though). Kind of abstract. Probably leaning a bit too Unknowing with these Spiral proceedings. 
> 
> title from 'I am afraid to own a Body' by emily dickinson.

The hallway is a shifting whirl of riotous color and the shining jagged mess of static that could be Helen’s mouth phases in and out of existence against his throat, and he can feel blood running from his nose, if he can still be said to be a person who possesses such a thing. Everything is an illusion here, the Distortion whispers into him, pressing him against the wall, and its form hurts to touch, a warping rainbow of impossibility that twists and bends and writhes as the walls sway. But of course, he barely exists here himself.

Why had he come here? Helen had promised not to unmake him as it did Michael, and he clings to that thought even as the world sways, but of course, the Distortion is a liar. What had he been seeking? What answers did it have that brought him here to this place, entwined with this body that isn’t a body, a form with no shape? It is a bear trap, and he is caught within it, and his skin splits and heals with every pass of the ribbon-strands of its fingers across it. 

“You wanted to be here,” it laughs, and then he is pressed to the floor, or has he always been on the floor? His own form blurs and twists, is made and unmade, and all at once as he wraps his legs around hips that are not, he remembers. Understands. 

_If I am an ‘it’, Archivist, what does that make you?_

_I am not a who, I am a **what**_. 

Remembers the old longing, the ache like a stone in his heart, a desire he had no name or shape for and no way to explain--to go so far beyond the shape of himself that he left personhood behind. To be an object, an idea, the hiss of static on a tape, cut loose and set adrift and finally, blissfully free from his body. Its body. 

“I suppose this is a _transition_ ,” the Archivist says, and laughs until the sound turns loud and sobbing into the echoing sway of the hallway, and the Distortion smiles its liar’s smile and holds it tight until it loses its form entirely. 

It has never felt more joyous, blissful peace than in this moment.


End file.
